Hey, everyone! Thank you all sooo much for the reviews and favorites! I appreciate it more than you know! -loves on all of you-

So, here's the first real chapter of "The Weird Life", which took a bit longer than I thought it would. I actually had a good bit of this written before I realized it wasn't going anywhere and started entirely over. OTL

I hope everyone likes this part; all of my love went into it! :D

Tuesday, 15/11/11

'Kay, so the thing I really love about Tuesdays is that I get off work at 5 o' clock and then don't have to go back 'till Friday. I mean, don't get me wrong or anything, I love my job. Probably as much as a guy can love a job, but I'm not allowed to play XBox or watch TV in the garage, y'know? Which is sometimes what I'd rather be doing than changing oil.

Plus, Artie can't come see me, unless it's a day that Jim isn't there. Jim, you see, is the owner of the place (which is called Jim's Auto Repair, go figure) and he's an awesome boss, but kind of a grumpy dude. He used to get all pissed off when Artie would come by to bring me a soda or whatever, though I don't know why. I guess he thought maybe Artie would fall on one of the cars and dent it or something, which is funny 'cause I don't think Artie weighs enough to dent a car even if he jumped up and down on the hood. Plus he's not prone to falling down, unless he's drunk.

And it really sucks, you know, 'cause video games, TV, and Artie are three out of the five things I like most. The other ones are donuts and aliens.

But anyway, you might be asking why I'm telling you about why I love Tuesdays so much. The answer is: on one Tuesday in the middle of November, I stayed late at the shop and only started walking back to the apartment me and Artie shared around 6-thirty. It was one of those weird days when half the sky is clear and the other half is gray clouds, and you don't really know if it's gonna rain or not, and it was actually pretty chilly whenever the wind blew.

I was in kind of a rush to get back, both 'cause of the weather and 'cause Artie was probably wondering where I was. He doesn't say it- he never actually says what he's thinking (again, unless he's drunk)- but I know he gets worried when I'm really late and he can't get a hold of me, and I'm pretty bad about leaving my cellphone at home, like I did today. The place we live isn't dangerous, but we grew up in the city where you kind of had to be paranoid about running around near dark.

So I hurried the few blocks it was from the shop to the apartment, and got back to the complex in, what, 10 minutes? Maybe even less, 'cause I'm pretty fast for being such a built guy.

Our complex was little, just two brick buildings facing each other from across a black-top parking lot. The one on the left was building A, and the one on the right was building B; me and Artie lived in the right one, up on the third floor in 38B.

I walked past the ugly gray mailboxes that they had sitting out front and got to the foot of the metal stairs that took you to the higher floors. I jumped the first three steps, the rusty ones that creaked and bent when you stepped on them. Probably not all that safe to leave around, but I guess no one was complaining about them, 'cause according to the old lady that lived beside us in 37B they'd been there forever. The rest of the steps were more-or-less A-okay, though, and pretty soon I was at the top of them and turning off into our hallway.

So, I got to our door, right? I took my key out of my pocket and got ready to stick it in the lock when I heard this sound from inside. I couldn't really tell what it was, so I put my ear against the door to hear it better; and whadda ya know, it sounded like fingernails scratching.

My first thought was, Shit, what if Artie got hurt and couldn't reach his phone so he dragged himself over to the door and has been trying to get out and get help the whole time I've been gone? And maybe that's not the most rational thought in the world, but I had it, and it freaked me right out; so I jammed the key in the lock and wiggled it around, then took it out and put it in right-side-up, and pulled the door open as fast as I could.

Well, there was no injured Englishman twitching in the doorway, which was good news. There was a streak of orange, brown and white fur that went darting out into the hall and down the stairs, yowling the whole way, though; I watched them go with what was probably a pretty great "WTF?" expression, though I can't be sure, 'cause, y'know. I can't see my own face.

The streak was mine and Artie's cats, in case you couldn't tell. Oliver's a little Scottish fold that Artie's brother gave to him when he moved in, and Hero's my cat, a mix of... something and something else. I'm not really sure, 'cause I found him as a starving kitten in a bush one day about a year ago, but I think he must be at least a little bit Maine Coon, 'cause he's super-fluffy. And big. Did I mention that he's big? 'Cause he is, really big.

Anyway, it was pretty weird for them to go running off like that. Hero didn't usually move that fast, and Ollie never ever wants to go outside; so I figured something was probably up inside, and stepped through the doorway to investigate.

It didn't really take that much investigating to find the reason the cats were getting the hell out of Dodge. Almost as soon as I got into the front hall and closed the door behind me, I got hit with this smell so bad I almost gagged. It smelled like a dead skunk, wrapped in gym socks, that somebody set on fire. (Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but still pretty dang awful.)

I pulled my t-shirt up over my nose and went on- a pretty damn brave thing to do, 'cause the further I went the stronger the smell got. And- oh shit- was that smoke coming from out of the kitchen?

Now I was freaked out again, 'cause where's there's smoke, there's fire, y'know? And fire is generally not a good thing to have inside of an apartment. Plus, I still didn't know where Artie was; he could've been asleep in his room or something, totally unaware of what was happening.

It took exactly every bit of my courage, but I held my breath and heroically charged around the corner and into the kitchen, where-

Oh God, you guys.

It was even worse than I thought.

...Okay, so maybe not worse than a house fire. But still bad.

See, to understand why what I'm about to tell you is bad, you have to understand something: when Artie first moved in with me, we sat down together and came up with a list of rules. Things that we both agreed would help us not kill each other while we were sharing a space.

There was stuff on there like "Take turns doing the dishes" and "If you want to listen to music the other person doesn't like, use headphones" and "Take turns cleaning out the litterbox, yes Alfred, that means you, too, even if you think it's 'totally yuck, bro'".

And one of the rules that I put was "ARTHUR IS NOT ALLOWED TO STEP FOOT IN THE KITCHEN W/O SUPERVISION AT ALL TIMES", which he got mad at me for, so I changed it to "ARTHUR ISN'T ALLOWED TO USE THE STOVE AND/OR MICROWAVE W/O SUPERVISION". He got mad at me for that one, too, and told me to stop writing in all uppercase letters. Finally we settled on "Leave all the cooking to Alfred", which is really just a super-nice way to say that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS ARTHUR ALLOWED TO USE THE STOVE AND/OR MICROWAVE WITHOUT SUPERVISION.

The reason for this super-duper important rule, ladies and gentleman, is that horrible things happen when Artie gets his hands on cookware. I first discovered this back in high school, when we were 17, and I stayed over at his house while his parents were on some kind of trip to New Zealand or something. I got woken up by a super loud beeping noise, and when I ran downstairs to see what was going on, I saw Artie standing on a chair trying to shut off the smoke detector above the kitchen doorway while... something popped and sizzled and burned in a frying pan on the stove behind him.

That day sucked.

And now, it looked like I was getting a repeat performance, 'cause standing there at the stove with a giant-spoon-thing in his hand, looking down at a huge pot on the back burner that was spewing steam and smoke, was Artie.

I guess he heard me make a choking sound of despair, 'cause he turned around with a little smile and went, "Oh, hullo Alfred. Where've you been off to?"

I tried to say, "What the in the name of baby Jesus are you doing, you lunatic?" but since I had my shirt over my face and was covering my mouth and nose with my hand it came out, "Wha a da nim uh biby Jees ah you din, you lunatee?" Which made less than perfect sense.

"Speak up, I can't understand you- and why do you have your shirt up?" he said. As if he could really be completely unaware of the smoke and the- the smell. But you know, I really think he has some sort of immunity to it. Kind of like how spiders can't be poisoned by other spiders of the same species, 'cause they're immune to their own venom (and don't tell me that's a bad analogy, either, 'cause I'm 98.3% sure that Artie's food is lethal to most mammals). 'Cause let me tell you, guys, that one time when we were 17 and he made what I found out later were supposed to be eggs? He ate them.

And lived.

So yeah. He probably thought that smell was nice or something. He's kind of batshit crazy like that, and it's pretty cute most of the time, but not right then it wasn't. No siree.

I pointed at the pot behind him- well, more like jabbed my finger at it- and Artie glanced back with a confused face. "What? Oh, the pot? Well, since you were taking so long getting home, I thought I'd make us something to eat."

I- very valiantly- tugged my shirt back down (though I didn't breathe through my nose- I wasn't stupid) and asked, "What is it supposed to be?"

"Spaghetti," he said. He stuck his spoon-thing into the pot and when he pulled it back up, there was a clump of vaguely noodle-shaped black stuff on the end.

I stared at it. He stared at it. He went, "Oh dear," and bent over the stove to look inside the pot.

Well, I figured that wasn't really a safe thing to be doing, what with the smoke blowing in his face and all, so I reached over and pulled him back by his shirt collar (he made a funny little "Hmph!" noise when I did that), then I leaned over and stretched my arm out to turn the dial thingy on the back of the stove and switch the burner off.

For a second we just kind of stood there looking at each other. Then I was all, "You broke the rule." In a super serious voice, too, and I think that surprised Artie 'cause he, well, looked surprised.

"Oh, surely you're not really upset about that," he said.

"No, I totally am."

He made a huffing sound that meant he thought I was being "Ever so silly" (or something like that) and crossed his arms. "Everything was going perfectly fine. Nothing to fuss over."

I tried giving him an "Are you serious?" face, but I guess he didn't catch it, so I said, "Dude, I didn't even know it was possible to burn noodles. Plus, the smoke?" Come to think of it, how did that not set the smoke detectors off? Maybe they were broken. Lame.

Artie scoffed (and the only reason I know that word is because he does it so much that one day I asked him about it). "That was just steam."

"Steam's not black."

I think that stumped him, 'cause he made a mad face at me (he hates it when I win an argument) and blushed a little bit. It was adorable and all, but at that exact moment the smoke alarm in the hall went off. We both jumped about a foot in the air, and I would have laughed except that goddamn that alarm was annoying, so I ran to shut it off while Artie went over to the little window above the sink and pushed it open a couple inches.

After I hit the button and the "BEEP BEEP BEEP" cut off, we both looked at each other with straight faces for about half a second before we busted out laughing. Well, I busted out laughing; Artie busted out with reserved chuckles, but that's pretty joyous for him.

When we could talk again without giggling, I said, "And that's why you gotta respect the rules, dude."

He tried to glare at me, but it was kinda ruined by the fact that he was smiling so he gave up. "Come off it, it wasn't anything I did. That pot's obviously defective."

I went, "Uh-huh," grinning. Now that the smell of smoke and- incinerated noodles?- was fading away, I noticed that I was pretty much starving. I fished my wallet out of my pocket and flipped it open to count out how much cash I had. (The answer's "Totally loaded", in case you were wondering. ...Alright, I had a twenty and a ten, but still.) "Tell you what, let me go get changed-" I was still in my oil-smeared work coveralls- "and we'll go out somewhere. Sound good?"

For a split second, a weird look flicked across Artie's face. I couldn't really name it, and then he was smiling again so I forgot it pretty much instantly. He said, "Right, good idea," and then walked over to the stove to get rid of the pot-o'-death. It looked like it was stuck, though, so he started tugging on it really hard, and then all of a sudden it came unstuck and he had to jump backwards so the pot wouldn't land on his toes or anything as it fell off the stove. The half-slimy mass of black noodle-stuff came seeping out all over the floor with a totally gross squelching sound.

I wanted to laugh again, but figured that wouldn't be the best idea if I didn't want Artie to be all pissed at me the rest of the night, so I just bit my lip and ran off to my room. As soon as I got in and shut the door, a really loud stream of cusswords came from the kitchen, and I grinned. That was Artie: proper and reserved until he got mad enough to swear like a sailor with Tourette's. Just one of the many things I loved about him.

Let me tell you a little something about Arthur Kirkland, boys and girls: He's kind of a hypocrite. Alright, not "kind of". He's a giant, epic hypocrite. He's always getting onto me for things that he turns around and does himself. Take last week, for instance. I'd just got done brushing my teeth, and I guess I left some toothpaste globs in the sink. Well, Artie goes in to do his stuff after me, and as soon as he steps in and sees the sink he makes me come back and wash it off. Fine, whatever. Then, I go back in about 10 minutes later to grab something I'd forgot, and what do I see in the sink? Toothpaste globs.

I guess it's kind of annoying sometimes, but mostly I just think it's funny. One of the most common ways he likes to- I don't know, hypocricize? Is that even a word? Whatever. One of the most common situations where he proves he's a hypocrite is whenever we go out to eat.

See, back when we were kids and teenagers, Artie never had a problem with swinging down to grab a burger or hotdog or something at a fast-food joint with me. When he went off to England for college, though, he picked up a bunch of odd habits. One of them was that his accent- which was always kind of there, thanks to his parents being English- got a heck of a lot stronger, and he started throwing around British words like I was supposed to know what the hell they meant. Oh, and he started calling the letter "zee" (as in Z), "zed", which was freaking weird. Seriously, what the hell is a "zed"? I mean, we went to kindergarten together! We learned the same dang alphabet song! Sheesh.

Anyway, one of the things he did was start to rip on fast-food places. He'd say things like, "I just do not understand the America fascination with those grease-laden calorie-patties they call Whoppers." Like he wasn't an American, too!

But let me tell you- every single time we go to a McDonald's together (which is, uh, probably more often then than we should), he always orders the same thing: Two Big Mac meals.

Two.

And he sits there and eats every single bite, and drinks every single drop of his large diet Pepsi, and you know why? Because McDonald's food is fucking delicious and he knows it.

Then when I call him out on it he'll get all blushy and say, "Well, I don't eat this stuff consistently, so it's different!" Right. Keep tellin' yourself that.

Like I said, I don't mind it. I think it's funny, and really cute. Especially since sometimes, even after he eats all that, he'll steal fries from me if he thinks I'm not looking. That's "Oh-my-God-I-just-wanna-hug-you-forever-and-never-let-go"-level adorable right there, but, uh, I can't really do that. 'Cause. Y'know.

Sooo, anyway, after the whole incident with the devil spaghetti, and after I'd changed and Artie got a jacket on, we headed out (to Mickey D's, of course). Artie started to pull the front door shut behind him, but I stuck out my hand and stopped it before it could close all the way. He gave me a weird look and went, "What'd you do that for?"

"The cats ran out screaming earlier. I think you scared them with your, uh, cooking," I said. I left the door open just a crack so they would be able to get back in and pulled on Artie's sleeve to get him to start walking with me. (And before you get all worried or whatever, it's really not such a huge deal to leave your door unlocked or anything where we live; it's a really tiny, crime-free town. Plus we trusted all our neighbors, so it was cool.)

He looked kind of worried at that last comment of mine. "What, even Oliver ran out? Are they okay? Where'd they go?"

I shrugged. "Don't know. Don't worry about it too much, they'll come back."

"I'm more worried for Oliver than Hero; at least Hero goes outside every now and then. I'm not sure Oliver really knows how to..."

"Hero'll take care of him, now come ooooon, I'm starving," I said. Not whined. Definitely not whined.

I still had a hold of his jacket sleeve, so he came along, but he kept looking all around like he was hoping to see them and he didn't stop 'till we were on the sidewalk heading to the restaurant. He was a total worrywart.

Y'know, one good thing about living in a little town instead of a big city is that pretty much everything's within walking distance of everything else. We were at the Mickey D's in just a few minutes, which was good 'cause it was still pretty nippy out and the gray part of the sky had gotten bigger.

When we got inside, I handed Artie some cash and he went up to the counter to order (we both always got the same thing, so he knew what I wanted) and I ran over to get straws and ketchup and stuff. Not literally ran, but... you know.

"Bada ba ba ba, I'm lovin' it," I said as I filled up the little paper cup things with ketchup. And I meant it. I love McDonald's.

"Alfred," I heard behind me. I turned around and saw Artie sitting a tray down on this two-person table by the window. He made a motion with his arm like "Hurry up and come over here", so I put the ketchup cups between my fingers to carry them and hustled back to the table to get with him. Er, join him. To eat.

I got back there and put down all the stuff and sat down. I was popping open my McNugget box when I noticed something kind of... off.

"Hey, Artie?" I said.

"Arthur."

"Whatever. How come you just got a cheeseburger?"

He was about to take a bite when I said that, but he stopped with the burger, like, halfway to his face and his mouth open. It was pretty funny. Then he closed his mouth, put the burger down and cleared his throat like he had something all important to say. I munched a fry.

"Er, yes, I've been meaning to speak with you, Alfred," he said. I made an "Mm-hmm" sound ('cause my mouth was full).

"The thing is... I-I feel a little bit guilty."

I raised my eyebrow at him. (The left one; I can't do the right one.) "Why? About eating a lot? It's okay, you're not gonna get fat or anything."

He shook his head. "No, not that." He sighed all of a sudden, real loud and heavy. "Alright, the truth is, Alfred... I feel rather like I've been taking advantage of your generosity lately. That is, for the whole time we've been living with one another."

I made a confused face at him, 'cause I was pretty confused. "When the hell have I been generous?"

He glared at me, but it was a "stop-being-dense" sort of glare, not a mad one. "Alfred," he went, "for the past month or so you've been paying the rent on the apartment. You've been buying groceries. Appliances. Toiletries. You pay for the cats to go to the vet. You've even been buying me random gifts-"

"Well, duh," I interrupted, and this time Artie gave me an annoyed glare, "I do that stuff 'cause you're my friend. I'd be an asshole if I made you pay for stuff even though you don't have a job."

"That's my point!" he said, kind of loud. This chick behind the counter glanced over at us. "Alfred, I have a degree. I should have a job right now. I should be able to pay my share toward the apartment, and for Oliver, and for my own meals at McDonald's! The fact that I can't is- well, it's frustrating. And embarrassing, and- and it makes me feel terrible."

I munched another fry, this time with ketchup all over it. Yum, ketchup. "So get a job," I said. "If it makes you feel that bad."

He did another one of those heavy sighs. "If it were that easy, I'd already have been employed this whole time."

Uh-oh, good point. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I nibbled at a McNugget.

"Look," he went on, "we agreed from the start that we'd both put money toward food and rent, and I do intend to honor that agreement. So, I'll continue looking for employment, but in the meantime, I just don't feel comfortable spending so much of your money. S-so, even though I do appreciate everything you do, don't buy me any more presents. Or meals. Or really anything more than I need, and when I do get the money I'll pay you back for everything you've already done."

I scoffed (though my scoff was manlier than his were) and went, "Are you kidding? I'm not gonna let you pay me back for anything. I get you stuff 'cause it makes you happy, and I like seeing you happy. Even if I thought you'd never ever get a job I'd still pay for stuff."

After I said that, his eyes went all big and his face turned red. I thought that was weird, and then I ran what I'd just said through my head again and came to the conclusion that, Oh shit, that was a pretty gay thing to say, wasn't it? And then I got all blushy and stuffed my face with a couple nuggets so I wouldn't have to say anything, and all in all it was pretty awkward for a few minutes.

After a while of quiet chewing and avoiding eye contact, Artie piped up again, but I couldn't really hear him so I went, "Huh?"

"I-I said, thank you," he said. He still wasn't looking at me, and his cheeks were still a little pink (which looked pretty good on him). "For what you said. I'm still going to look for work, of course, but... it's nice to know that you have my back. I truly appreciate it."

I laughed- still maybe a tiny bit awkwardly, shut up- and was all, "Come on, dude, I've had your back for 22 years- and I always will."

"I know," he said, and he finally lifted his head up to look at me. He was smiling, and whadda ya know, guys? It was the sweetest damn smile I'd ever seen.

We spent a lot of time after our Very Awkward Turned Kinda Nice Talk just sitting around gabbing, getting refills on our drinks every now and then to keep the chick behind the counter from giving us dirty looks. (Plus I gave Artie half my fries, which made him blush and look away again.) After a while, though, I noticed that it was dark outside. As in, pitch black. As in, when I looked at the clock on my phone it said "9:43 PM" and damn how did we end up spending more than three hours there?

So we dumped our tray in one of the trash bin things and said "Night" to the counter lady (who didn't look all that broken up to see us go), and finally pushed out through the double doors to start walking back home. I saluted the glowing Golden Arches when we passed them, and Artie slapped me on the arm like he disapproved but then he laughed, and I grinned at him.

A couple blocks from home, though, and those gloomy gray clouds that'd been hanging around all day finally said, "Fuck it," and it started pouring seriously freezing rain, and let me tell you guys, that does not feel good.

Artie went, "Oh, bollocks!" (which I guess is British for "Oh shit") and pulled his jacket hood up. Then, something awesomely cool happened: he actually grabbed my hand, as in, grabbed it with his own hand, and started running. While holding my hand.

And I know he just did it to get me to come along so we could get out of the rain faster, but still. His hand was, like, super warm (especially compared to the arctic raindrops), and kind-of-but-not-really-soft, like he had a few calluses that were fading; and it was smaller than mine and his fingers were sort of thin and bony but not unpleasant-bony, and I randomly thought that, Wow, our hands sure do fit together really great.

And I know, I know that that's an incredibly stupid thought to have, but I couldn't help it. Not when my face was probably firetruck-red and my heart was beating even faster than it usually did when I ran somewhere, and my stomach was doing this weird twisty-fluttery-deal, which could have been 'cause of contaminated nuggets, but somehow I didn't think so.

Plus, Artie's clothes were totally soaked by now and were sticking to his body, and that definitely helped to derail my thinking a little bit.

All good things come to an end, though, which is completely lame. Probably less than a minute later (although, and I know this sounds dumb, it felt like an eternity), we were at our building and jumping up the steps.

When we got to the top, Artie let my hand go and I did the same to his, maybe just the tiniest bit reluctantly. He fell back against the wall and panted for a few seconds, then he looked up at me and laughed, but it came out all breathless. He probably wasn't used to running around like that.

I laughed back, and said, "Fun, huh?"

He stood up straight again and made this crooked little smile at me. "Loads of fun," he said. We started walking down the hall to our door. When we got there, I saw it was open a little bit wider than we'd left it, and sure enough when we got to the living room (leaving our shoes and socks and Artie's wet jacket in a pile by the door), there were the cats, all snuggled up together on the loveseat.

Artie made a happy sound and went over to fuss over them. Hero went, "Meow," a few times and rubbed against Artie's hand, demanding pets, while Ollie just kind of looked at him and then went back to sleep.

"See," I said, "told you they'd be fine." I walked over too and scratched Ollie behind his nubby ears, which got me some soft purring.

Artie sighed. "Yeah. Couldn't help worrying, though." Suddenly he straightened up and stretched with a yawn. "Goodness, it's been a long day. I think I might turn in."

"Seriously? This early?"

"It's not all that early," he went, walking around the sofa toward his room. "And make sure you change out of those wet clothes soon. The last thing we need is you catching pneumonia or something."

"Will do, Mom," I said, giving him a thumbs-up. He glanced back and grinned all crooked at me again.

"Good night, Alfred. I..."

I blinked at him. "Yeah?"

He looked like he really wanted to say something, for a second, but I guess he got over it 'cause he shook his head and went, "Nothing. Good night." And then he walked off to his room without waiting for me to say "Night" back or anything, which was weird.

When I heard his door shut I sighed and sagged against the back of the loveseat (getting it kind of wet, but it'd probably be fine). I took turns petting Hero and Ollie, and asked them really quietly, "What do you think the chances are he was gonna say 'I love you'?"

They just stared at me.

"Thought so," I whispered. I pulled myself up and dragged my feet across the carpet to my room. Then, I had an idea, and went back and scooped the cats up. They squirmed around for a second, but I guess accepted their fate 'cause they let themselves be carried to my bed, where I dumped them while I changed. When I crawled under the blanket, Ollie climbed up on my belly and got comfortable while Hero curled up on my legs.

And, y'know, while I was laying there, looking up at the ceiling in the dark, I couldn't help thinking that it'd be so much better having a certain other person laying beside me instead; cuddled up to my side, maybe with their leg up over mine, or their arm across my chest. But hey, whatever. Cats were fine, too.